Payroll is always on priority for any business despite their industry type. It’s also a major responsibility of business owners looking for ways to increase the efficiency within their organizations. After all, employees expect a prompt and accurate payroll, every time. Simultaneously, business owners want payroll to be easy and hassle-free, so they can concentrate more on improving their business productivity while keeping their employees satisfied and motivated.
Many of the organization feels that if they pay their employees on time, then they have an efficient payroll process in place. But there’s a lot of behind the scenes hard work involved to make the complete payroll process seamless from start to finish. In fact, it is one of the most complicated tasks for any organization. Complication to tax regulation, compliance, and employee benefits- all of them together can ruin the accuracy and timing of your payroll process.
As per the payroll operations survey report conducted in 2014 by Deloitte Consulting, it was observed that most of the complicated challenges that companies face in payroll processing include:
In the long run, these factors could drastically affect the productivity of your organization as well. Therefore, to make sure you keep your employees happy while complying with employment regulations and compliance, here are five secret steps you need to follow to improve your organization’s payroll efficiency.
Even a minor mistake in the computation of employee payroll could result in hefty penalties. Failure to comply with IRS payroll regulations is usually high and companies are required to fix those errors while paying the due amount to the IRS if any along with the penalties. However, if you want to avoid such critical errors, you need to acquire a thorough understanding of tax laws from an experienced accountant. This would help you avoid any mistakes.
If your employees have a complaint that their payroll is delayed or inaccurate, then you need to conduct regular, ongoing audits. Begin the process with a workflow analysis from start to end. Analysis should include: checking every step in the payroll process for accuracy, implementing an automated attendance and conducting training programs.
Since payroll is a comprehensive and recurring process, businesses must develop a defined calendar of deadlines and stick to it. Frequently fluctuating deadlines force payroll specialists to deal with the stress, which in turn can automatically result in errors. To avoid this mess, create a calendar that covers every step of the payroll process.
Mistakes will definitely occur if an employee misunderstands your company’s payroll policy. Therefore, make your policy simple, easy to understand and most importantly transparent to your employee’s access. It is vital to provide clear and brief policies for attendance, paid leave, and expense reimbursement to employees. Transparency in payroll policies will help to avoid any sort of misunderstanding.
To maintain the transparency and balance in your organization, consider providing online access to your employee’s current and past payroll information. Doing this will significantly reduce the inquiries of staff.
Running a successful payroll process can welcome fruitful advantages to business- not only just reduce costs, but in the form of better global payroll services, improved employee productivity and the companies too. Outsourcing such complicated service in the hand of a payroll specialist who has in-depth knowledge of bookkeeping, accounting and payroll process can prove valuable.
